TODAY!
Friday, January 18th, 2008IT’S CLOVERFIELD DAY!
Archive for January, 2008
Office:Mac 2008… a Few Words
Friday, January 18th, 2008I wanted to say a few words about Office:Mac 2008, as it was released this week at Macworld and is available for order from the Apple website. Supply is already in the channel too, as there are boxes for sale in the SFO Apple Store.
I have several things to say about this suite and I’m afraid that most of them will come off as negatives.
Let’s get a few things out of the way. I’ll just put it straight as I’ve seen/spoken it over the past year. Now that the product is out, I feel like I can speak somewhat about it.
I’ve met with Craig Eisler, the GM of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft as of June 2007. Nice guy, I like him lots. He’s a fast talker and quick on the wit, so be ready with your mind primed when you meet him. I call him “The Chihuahua” mainly because of how quickly he yaps through his sentences, but that’s certainly not meant to be derogatory. He’s a very nice fellow.
Here’s a few things that Mr. Eisler has said about Office:Mac. I feel it’s important to address them.
“Office for the Mac is not a port of Office for Windows. It is an implementation of Office.”
Using that single statement, you can start to see where the mindset for the MacBU was when they made decisions. Therefore, here’s my hitlist.
- Tasks and Notes still do not sync with the Exchange Server, even with 2008
- Visual Basic macros/scripting has been removed. Who cares if you need to share documents with Windows users that makes use of this functionality? Well, expect to port it to Applescript somehow. Remember, this is an implementation of Office, not an Office for Windows port. You obviously do not need that level of collaboration with Windows users.
- The ribbon UI from Office 2007 is “ported to the Mac in a Mac-ish way.” Whatever that means. Please, just get rid of it.
- The most expensive version of Office:Mac 2008 contains a digital media organizer called Microsoft Expression. Why? This is a Mac. Why spend time on buying a company that makes a product like this and porting it to the Mac? This is a Mac for crissake. In case you didn’t know, digital media organization comes with the Mac. That’s what Apple does. Why does Microsoft need to fire one synapse at this at all? Why can’t they use the time more wisely and do something like… oh I dunno…make tasks and notes sync with the Exchange server!
I’ve used it for some number of months and can say that as a productivity suite, it’s passable. I admit that I rarely use the tools like Powerpoint and Word, except to view other peoples’ work. If I’m going to do something heavy, I usually end up firing up Word 2007 in a VM. I don’t know why I avoid Word 2008 on the Mac, but it just seems to be overkill in a way that doesn’t agree with me. I know that it will be more than a viable product for 90% of the market that needs it, however, and for those people it’s a beautiful thing… well, as long as you don’t have to share your work with anyone running Windows 
I’m installing Office:Mac 2008 on my work Mac because, well, I have to. I will not be installing it on the Mac Pro at home because, well, I have iWork. I’m hoping one day that priorities will fall back into place at the MacBU.
Perhaps I should apply there and help to set them straight.
Macworld Day 4 Wrapup
Friday, January 18th, 2008After lunch today, I decided there wasn’t much going on in the conference that would do me much good, so I spent my time wisely. I sat there at the lunch table, whipped out the laptop and started to catch up on work email. Two hours later I had made a pretty good dent in it. Usually my coworkers can tell when I do this because I send a “blast” of email messages to respond to those that had been stacking up.
Hmm. Now might be a good time to discuss my email process like I meant to, but that’ll come later.
I thought today about how I’m working with my task system. Right now I’m using Outlook 2007 in a virtual machine to manage my tasks because others on the Exchange environment need real-time access to those tasks. There’s a problem though - it doesn’t work. Apparently using Outlook 2003 on an Exchange 2003 mailbox and trying to view an Exchange 2007 mailbox that is managed with Outlook 2007 just isn’t in the cards. The end result is that having my tasks on the server is buying absolutely zilchero for everyone.
Now I’m thinking about coming back to manage my tasks with iGTD. My only requirement for task management is that I can use the keyboard to interact with it. If I have to move my hand to the trackpad or a mouse and click anywhere to open a new task, the application fails me. For instance, using Quicksilver to open a new task in Apple Mail or iGTD works fine for me. Using Outlook in a VM to click on “New Task” and all that mess just doesn’t. If sharing my tasks isn’t working out, then there’s not much point in them being on the server. Therefore, I’m back to thinking about what to use on the Mac.
Why is my only requirement that my hands do not leave the keyboard to enter a new task? Most of my job entails sitting on telecons and receiving actions from something akin to a machine gun. They come at me so fast that if I don’t have a way to hit a key combination and capture the words as they are fired at me, I have no hope of remembering what to do. That’s just the way my job is - and if I cannot capture those actions accurately, I lose.
OmniFocus won a best of show award here at Macworld 2008 and it looked pretty interesting. One of my idols, Merlin Mann, was an advisor on it, so I thought that maybe he had something good in the final product. We checked it out and it was pretty appealing to me - not so much for my coworker. His requirement is different from mine however. He needs the application to sort by project and subproject; which, it seemed to me, OmniFocus did quite an outstanding job of… but he disagreed. Oh well.
Now I do need the application to file by project and subproject, but that’s just not as important to me as quick entry. I can sort projects later when I have some sit down time.
Oh yeah, you came here to hear about Macworld. That’s the title of the post anyway.
Anyway, so I do my email for several hours, then took some time out to visit Leo Laporte/Alex Lindsay’s discussion section on podcasting. It was informative, but not entirely anything I hadn’t heard before. Leo was somewhat discouraging on podcasting and I don’t think he intended to sound so negative. Alex Lindsay is jazzed on video podcasting and it shows (especially those “How To” videos that he’s not producing widely, but has a strong belief in). Leo made it clear several times he didn’t think anyone was going to get rich off of podcasting, but it’s definitely the future.
I agree with him. Right now, podcasting is a niche market of sorts. It’s for Apple owners and Zune owners, but in reality it needs widespread attention by being integrated into apps like Windows Media Player and other RSS feed masters. I know, but face it, WMP is the de facto for many people out there.
By 6pm we were out and heading off for dinner at Colibri, a Mexican dining joint just up the street. Very, very nice food and lovely women with lovely smiles. Two margaritas later, I’m here writing to you.
Tomorrow I’ll be spending some more time on the podcasting thing as there are some training sessions. I’ll also be searching for more of the Mac IT sessions, especially as it relates to directory integration (Active Directory, that is (banjo)).
Right now I’m chatting it up with Eilla and listening to her work frustrations and soon I’ll be in bed reading a book. Right now I feel like reading a nice book about Taiwan, China or Japan. I don’t know why, just feel like I’d rather be there right now.
Technorati Tags:
Mac, Macworld, Podcasting, TWiT
Honey, I Need a New Ipod
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Nope, iTunes rentals do not work with my 5th gen 80gb iPod.
HONEYYY!?
A Few More Macworld Photos
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Getting sick of it yet? Not me. Still having a great time here. I’m looking forward to seeing Leo Laporte and Alex Lindsay this afternoon.
In the meantime…
The Eve Online booth on the show floor. I accidentally ran into the developers of the game. They promised me an account. How nice of them 
(Don’t they promise an account for anyone who pays?)
Great astronomy software to be had here. Neat telescope too.
There’s picture speaks a lot, but I’m not sure what it’s saying.
Leo Laporte was giving a speech at a walk-up booth on the floor. He is losing his voice - badly. Hope he can speak today!
This shot is mainly for my daughter. These folks have some funky skins for your Macbook. Nice lookin’ stuff.
One of the busiest (and ugliest) displays at the show. Looking at this thing is an instant eyesore. So I shot two pictures of it for you.
I think everyone knows by now what Macbook this is. If you don’t, then why are you bothering to even read this?
Scott Bourne and Andy Ihnatko were interviewing in a soundproof booth on the floor. I think they got sick of the zoo surrounding them taking pictures.
Happy birthday!
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Ack… well, at least I called her.
Today was my wife’s birthday. She is once again within arm’s reach of my own age for a short 3.5 months.
Happy birthday my darling wife, even though I’m so far away… I’m thinking of you.
Macworld Day 4
Thursday, January 17th, 20088:48am PDT: Here we are again at Moscone West. We wanted to stop and get some real breakfast this morning but that just didn’t pan out. We ended up with pastries and coffee again. We headed on in and camped out at the sofas in the lounge.
In a few minutes I’ll be heading up to the Live with David Pogue show on the third floor.
10:53am PDT: Live with David Pogue show was very entertaining. A good way to start the show. Next up we’re heading into a conference session about Macs in the Washington Post.
12:25pm PDT: Just got out of the Washington Post session and sat down for lunch. Rob Curley is the bomb! GREAT session on how the washingtonpost.com team is using the Internet. Great, great stuff. Alextreme, you’re right - I need to learn django.
Finally… the Keynote Wait!
Thursday, January 17th, 2008Finally, here’s the video of the long keynote walk. Told you it was coming!
Having Trouble
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008Having trouble getting the movie uploaded. I will try again from the hotel and the hard wire.
Macworld Day 3
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008I wanted to sleep in a little bit as last night was a long one. We had plenty of work issues and the party on top of that; I was quite exhausted by the time my noggin touched the pillow. I think I was out before I even fully rested on said pillow.
Sleeping in apparently wasn’t on the agenda for family and folks back home. Around 6am Pacific my Blackberry started ringing off the hook. I realize people likely do not feel very sorry for me since it was a party after all, but dammit I had to work too. I am trying to avoid thinking about work. Sheesh. I am here at Macworld learning stuff!
The phone kept ringing, about once every half hour, until about 8:00am I finally gave up and got out of bed. Aleve was popped in the mouth, but my headache still has yet to go away.
We arrived at the conference at about 11am, just in time to find our first class. Unfortunately, the iCal events presented by Macworld failed to have the room numbers for many of the locations so we were unable to find the first class. We ended up walking back and forth between Moscone south and west.
Finally we arrived at the class. We were quickly convinced to purchase Aperture, made a future note to do that. Then we split up so I could attend the Xsan class and he could attend something else.
Oh yes… in passing from Moscone West to South, we ran into two devs from the Eve Online group. I got a card. Woo!
Up for tonight - dinner with a vendor and hopefully a little more relaxation!